Comparing the genomes of different species—or different members of the same species—is the basis of a great deal of modern biology. DNA sequences that are conserved across species are likely to be functionally important, ...

Computer Sciences Corp. is paying a $190 million penalty and a former CEO is returning $3.7 million in compensation to resolve federal regulators' charges of accounting fraud involving an important foreign contract.

In the 18th century, researchers attempting to read the writings of ancient, charred scrolls picked and pulled at the fragile artifacts, destroying many. Fast forward to 2015 and researchers are developing a superior method, ...

A breakthrough in machine learning has also brought about a "game changer" for the science of metabolomics - and will hasten the development of diagnostic and predictive tests for Alzheimer's, cancer, diabetes and numerous ...

Bill Shorten's recent announcement that, if elected, a Labor Government would "ensure that computer coding is taught in every primary and secondary school in Australia" has brought attention to an increasing world trend.

Last summer, MIT researchers published a paper describing an algorithm that can recover intelligible speech from the analysis of the minute vibrations of objects in video captured through soundproof glass.

It's hard to take a photo through a window without picking up reflections of the objects behind you. To solve that problem, professional photographers sometimes wrap their camera lenses in dark cloths affixed to windows by ...

Computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego, have combined sophisticated computer vision algorithms and a brain-computer interface to find mines in sonar images of the ocean floor. The study shows that ...

Computer science

Computer science (or computing science) is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation, and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems. It is frequently described as the systematic study of algorithmic processes that describe and transform information. According to Peter J. Denning, the fundamental question underlying computer science is, "What can be (efficiently) automated?" Computer science has many sub-fields; some, such as computer graphics, emphasize the computation of specific results, while others, such as computational complexity theory, study the properties of computational problems. Still others focus on the challenges in implementing computations. For example, programming language theory studies approaches to describing computations, while computer programming applies specific programming languages to solve specific computational problems, and human-computer interaction focuses on the challenges in making computers and computations useful, usable, and universally accessible to people.

The general public sometimes confuses computer science with vocational areas that deal with computers (such as information technology), or think that it relates to their own experience of computers, which typically involves activities such as gaming, web-browsing, and word-processing. However, the focus of computer science is more on understanding the properties of the programs used to implement software such as games and web-browsers, and using that understanding to create new programs or improve existing ones.